New Effort To Tackle North's Home Care Crisis
The Individual Service Fund offers support for those in need of care in the community.
A new scheme is aiming to improve home care provision in the north's rural communities.
Patients are given an Individual Service Fund which they use to help meet their support needs.
It's currently offered through Boleskine Community Care, but NHS Highland wants to roll it out across the region.
It comes after a row about the lack of available carers in rural areas, leaving patients stuck in hospital for longer than needed.
“This structure is the first of its kind and offers a template for the delivery of care in rural areas utilising the capacity with the community,” said NHS Highland district manager, Gavin Sell.
“Our aim is to provide an effective, flexible and professional care at home service and by using ISF’s; we are empowering individuals to have greater choice in how their care is provided.
“Each scheme is tailored to meet the needs of the clients and enables the care providers to work flexibly with people offering additional support when people are poorly and monitoring when things are good.
“We know there is an increasing demand in rural areas for home care and this practical approach is allowing us to develop local solutions, employ local people and support people to remain within their communities.
“We are keen to adopt this model across other rural areas and we are currently in discussions with other providers to work in partnership with NHS Highland to make their work in other areas.”
Stephen Pennington, managing director of HHC, said: “HHC has been delighted to work with Boleskine Community Care and NHS Highland to establish what I believe is a unique model of care at home provision in a rural area where previously it was difficult to meet the care needs for older people.
“The SDS Act has enabled us to create a new model where individuals can control their own flexible care provision and local people can be employed to meet their needs.”
Jane O’Donovan from Boleskine Community Care, said: “We are a rural local based charity whose aim is to arrange for the care of less able people in the community.
“We support carers from the area to look after local people so they can remain with their friends and family.
"This epitomises the whole philosophy of care in the community so that elderly or disabled people do not have to move out of their familiar environment for care needs.”
NHS Highland SDS manager, Jennifer Campbell, said: “This is a creative approach to an issue that people have identified in communities across Highland.
“By adopting an ISF, it gives supported individuals who access services choice and control over how their social care is delivered.”